This is a moving tale of family separation without a real resolution (for the characters), although it does end on a hopeful note.
Efrén gets good grades in middle school school, eats well (his Amá's cooking is fantastic!) and while his parents aren't wealthy, they both work and provide well for him. But they're from Mexico and neither has a visa or work permit; they're "undocumented."
Until his mother is swept up in an ICE raid and deported across the border to Mexico. Then she is documented, and not in a good way. She won't be allowed to return to the US in the near-future -- if ever.
Efrén is suddenly responsible for taking care of his siblings, younger kiddos Max (who is a handful) and Mia, including cooking, cleaning, laundry and homework, walking the kids to school, all while his father works two jobs to raise the money to pay a coyote, or people smuggler, to get his wife across the border -- and home -- again.
At first Efrén does all he can, but the responsibilities and missing his mom take their toll. It's exhausting and it's not long before he's behind on the housework, his school work suffers, and he upsets his best friend and isn't as supportive of his campaign to be class president as he wants to be.
I won't spoil how it ends, just know, the ending's a bit fuzzy -- I think on purpose -- because most (thousands) of these stories don't have a happy ending IRL, not the one we want to see, with the family reunited, not IRL, and the author, I think, wanted to stay as close to that as possible.
Teachers Note:
This has an excellent teaching / discussion guide, Teaching Efren Divided, from Re-Imagining Immigration. You have to fill out a form and provide your email, name, address and zip code, but the organization will send the link to download a pdf of the teaching guide for free almost instantly. The exact lesson is available to members on Share My Lesson, as well.
It's 16 pages, starting with two pre-reading activities, one of which is Mapping the Ecology of Identities. I found an explanation of the graphic in this section here, accompanied by a Graphic Organizer that, with a bit of re-working, could easily be used as a class handout.
The teaching guide divides the book into three sections with 15 comprehension / reflection questions for part one, 18 for part two, and 14 for part three. Several After-Reading and Extension activities are offered, as well.
Unfortunately, the outside links in the pdf don't actually work; you can't click on them. So I wrote to Re-Imagining Migration administrators, and they generously provided them.
I've generally found this sort of hurdle, especially with free teaching materials, can make or break a teacher's decision to adopt a new book. So here are all the links mentioned in the pdf study guide.
The three (3) additional teaching guides are referenced in the Efrén guide. The links are listed here, and all require you sign up (fill out a form with name, email, address, etc.) to receive them, just like you have to do for the Efren Divided study guide, but they were provided almost instantaneously, for free.
This does, however, mean you'll be reconfiguring the content, i.e. using a little from each for your lesson plans (LPs).
Efrén Divided Study Guide outside links:
US Immigration History timeline (the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo can be researched fairly easily, using a Google search, but additional info is on this excellent timeline, as well):
A Google search will turn up several articles and videos of actress Dianne Guerreo speaking about family separation. I found this one useful, by the Washington Post. "She’s a successful TV star. But she’s still grappling with her parents’ deportation," by Nora Krug. June 21, 2018.
